The document describes how the city of San Jose, California engages citizens in the budget process through "Budget Games" rather than traditional town hall meetings. Citizens are invited to participate in small group discussions where they use play money to collectively decide how to raise and allocate funds. This encourages cooperation, compromise and engagement with the complexity of budgeting. The results influence the city council's budget decisions. The format scales to gather perspectives from many groups and leads to more civil civic participation compared to individual citizen testimony.
Grassroots grantmakers presentation for community matters in newport vermontCommunityMatters
Grassroots grantmaking focuses on empowering community groups and citizens to create positive change from the ground up. It provides small grants and other resources to help people turn their ideas into realities. This approach believes that engaged community members can better address local needs than outside agencies. Grassroots grantmakers include community foundations, giving circles, and other organizations that take a people-powered approach. Their goal is to support collaborative projects led by community members, such as neighborhood cleanups, youth programs, local celebrations, and more. Even small grants can spark new relationships and community initiatives that create lasting impact.
This week, we distill insights around PlanBig - a platform created by Bendigo and Adelaide Bank to connect changemakers and support them in bringing their ideas to reality.
100+ thinkers and planners within MSLGROUP share and discuss inspiring projects on social data, crowdsourcing, storytelling and citizenship on the MSLGROUP Insights Network.
Every week, we pick up one project and do a deep dive into conversations around it -- on the MSLGROUP Insights Network itself but also on the broader social web -- to distill insights and foresights. We share these insights with you on our People’s Insights blog and compile the best insights from the network and the blog in the People’s Insights Quarterly Magazine, as a showcase of our capabilities.
We have further synthesized the insights to provide foresights for business leaders and changemakers — in the ten-part People’s Insights annual report titled Now & Next: Ten Frontiers for the Future of Engagement, now available as a Kindle eBook.
For more, see: http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/future-of-engagement
GAMESTORMING WIKIPEDIA: AN EXPERIMENT IN PLAYFUL ONBOARDING
This is the story of how we built a game to learn how to edit Wikipedia in under an hour with the attitude that if it's not fun people won't play it and if it doesn't leverage intrinsic motivations it won't work.
The document discusses strategies for nonprofit organizations to engage donors from different generations in fundraising and philanthropy. It covers the characteristics and philanthropic tendencies of Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. Some key points discussed are engaging younger generations through social media, events led by young professionals, and family legacy giving. The document also provides suggestions for assessing an organization's ability to cultivate multi-generational relationships and implement new fundraising strategies.
The document discusses the concept of "ChangeMakers", which are community groups focused on positively imagining and creating change through citizen engagement, social entrepreneurship, and capacity building. It outlines principles for ChangeMakers groups, which include being self-funding, focused on long-term systemic change, fostering social entrepreneurship and innovations, and taking advantage of networking technologies. The goal is to create a society where every citizen feels empowered to create positive change.
Culture Work: Organizational Becoming Made PracticalMarc Rettig
Notes and visuals from Marc Rettig's keynote talk at the 2015 UX Advantage conference. Marc seeks to deepen the conversation about fostering design culture in organizations by providing a process definition of "design," a layered definition of "culture," and insights about the interplay between design capacity and organizational culture.
Formatted as a letter-sized document rather than a slide deck. Combines all speaker's notes with visuals from the slides.
Also available as a web article on Medium: https://medium.com/@mrettig/culture-work-283223dce016
From @mikearauz
"The effectiveness of your marketing efforts are dependent on your ability to engage and empower a network of people connected by a shared interest. It’s time to start designing experience for networks instead of just groups of individuals."
This round table meeting focused on brainstorming ideas for the future of the 3D web. Attendees discussed the need to focus on users and what will provide value for mainstream adoption, rather than just technology. Suggestions included making the experience app-easy and mobile-friendly, connecting to real-world content and commerce, understanding different audiences like gamers and educators, and providing templates and tools to lower barriers to creation. The group will refine these ideas at future meetings to define goals and priorities for the 3D web.
Grassroots grantmakers presentation for community matters in newport vermontCommunityMatters
Grassroots grantmaking focuses on empowering community groups and citizens to create positive change from the ground up. It provides small grants and other resources to help people turn their ideas into realities. This approach believes that engaged community members can better address local needs than outside agencies. Grassroots grantmakers include community foundations, giving circles, and other organizations that take a people-powered approach. Their goal is to support collaborative projects led by community members, such as neighborhood cleanups, youth programs, local celebrations, and more. Even small grants can spark new relationships and community initiatives that create lasting impact.
This week, we distill insights around PlanBig - a platform created by Bendigo and Adelaide Bank to connect changemakers and support them in bringing their ideas to reality.
100+ thinkers and planners within MSLGROUP share and discuss inspiring projects on social data, crowdsourcing, storytelling and citizenship on the MSLGROUP Insights Network.
Every week, we pick up one project and do a deep dive into conversations around it -- on the MSLGROUP Insights Network itself but also on the broader social web -- to distill insights and foresights. We share these insights with you on our People’s Insights blog and compile the best insights from the network and the blog in the People’s Insights Quarterly Magazine, as a showcase of our capabilities.
We have further synthesized the insights to provide foresights for business leaders and changemakers — in the ten-part People’s Insights annual report titled Now & Next: Ten Frontiers for the Future of Engagement, now available as a Kindle eBook.
For more, see: http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/future-of-engagement
GAMESTORMING WIKIPEDIA: AN EXPERIMENT IN PLAYFUL ONBOARDING
This is the story of how we built a game to learn how to edit Wikipedia in under an hour with the attitude that if it's not fun people won't play it and if it doesn't leverage intrinsic motivations it won't work.
The document discusses strategies for nonprofit organizations to engage donors from different generations in fundraising and philanthropy. It covers the characteristics and philanthropic tendencies of Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. Some key points discussed are engaging younger generations through social media, events led by young professionals, and family legacy giving. The document also provides suggestions for assessing an organization's ability to cultivate multi-generational relationships and implement new fundraising strategies.
The document discusses the concept of "ChangeMakers", which are community groups focused on positively imagining and creating change through citizen engagement, social entrepreneurship, and capacity building. It outlines principles for ChangeMakers groups, which include being self-funding, focused on long-term systemic change, fostering social entrepreneurship and innovations, and taking advantage of networking technologies. The goal is to create a society where every citizen feels empowered to create positive change.
Culture Work: Organizational Becoming Made PracticalMarc Rettig
Notes and visuals from Marc Rettig's keynote talk at the 2015 UX Advantage conference. Marc seeks to deepen the conversation about fostering design culture in organizations by providing a process definition of "design," a layered definition of "culture," and insights about the interplay between design capacity and organizational culture.
Formatted as a letter-sized document rather than a slide deck. Combines all speaker's notes with visuals from the slides.
Also available as a web article on Medium: https://medium.com/@mrettig/culture-work-283223dce016
From @mikearauz
"The effectiveness of your marketing efforts are dependent on your ability to engage and empower a network of people connected by a shared interest. It’s time to start designing experience for networks instead of just groups of individuals."
This round table meeting focused on brainstorming ideas for the future of the 3D web. Attendees discussed the need to focus on users and what will provide value for mainstream adoption, rather than just technology. Suggestions included making the experience app-easy and mobile-friendly, connecting to real-world content and commerce, understanding different audiences like gamers and educators, and providing templates and tools to lower barriers to creation. The group will refine these ideas at future meetings to define goals and priorities for the 3D web.
1) Forever Manchester is a community foundation that works to help local communities in Greater Manchester do extraordinary things together through an asset-based community development approach.
2) Asset-based community development focuses on identifying the skills, talents, and resources within a community that can be mobilized, rather than focusing on needs and problems. It involves discovering individual talents, mapping community associations and institutions, and making connections between assets.
3) The workshop taught techniques for identifying and connecting community assets, including asset mapping, identifying individual skills and passions, finding people through positive conversations, and sharing community stories. The goal is to encourage local-led and sustainable community action.
Social Entrepreneurship: Mobilizing, Innovating, and Collaborating for Social...Illinois ResourceNet
Betsy Goulet, Adjunct Faculty and Doctoral Student, University of Illinois, Springfield, will discuss the importance of collabora-tion amid the new reality of shrinking budgets where agencies, nonprofits and social service programs are being forced to do more with less. She will share information about the role of social entrepreneurship as an innovative strategy for social change in the development of partnerships among nonprofits, government, universities and corporations.
Slides on why public engagement is being done, what kinds of engagement are happening, and how we can do it better - by building stronger civic infrastructure at the local level.
NCDD Presentation for CommunityMatters in Newport VermontCommunityMatters
The document discusses strategies for building community through public engagement, dialogue, and deliberation. It outlines challenges such as disconnection and partisan politics, and emphasizes the need for inclusion, shared purpose, and sustained engagement. Asset-based community development and deliberative forums are presented as approaches to identify community strengths, encourage cooperation, and find solutions through respectful exchange of diverse views. Examples from previous community initiatives demonstrate how these principles of public participation can strengthen relationships and foster collaborative action.
MPI Presentation on Gameification DeMarleAnn DeMarle
This document discusses how to use game principles and mechanics to increase engagement for meetings and events. It covers how games create meaningful experiences through assigned roles, rewards systems, and levels of participation and difficulty. The goal is to motivate behaviors that support the event by defining what players should accomplish and driving participation through badges, points, leaderboards and status levels. Mechanics like ongoing updates help sustain long-term engagement in the online community built for the event.
The document provides instructions for requesting essay writing help from HelpWriting.net in 5 steps:
1. Create an account with a password and email.
2. Complete a 10-minute order form providing instructions, sources, and deadline.
3. Review bids from writers and choose one based on qualifications.
4. Review the paper and authorize payment if satisfied, with free revisions available.
5. Request multiple revisions to ensure satisfaction, with a full refund option for plagiarism.
GlobalGiving crowdsources funding for nonprofits by allowing individuals to donate to specific projects and see results. It uses community input and social media to evaluate over 2500 nonprofit projects and organizations. GlobalGiving aims to build an online reputation system for nonprofits based on monitoring, evaluations, and feedback from visitors, the community, and filtered social media.
GlobalGiving crowdsources funding for nonprofits by allowing individuals to donate to specific projects and see results. It uses community input and social media to evaluate over 2500 nonprofit projects and organizations. GlobalGiving aims to build an online reputation system for nonprofits based on monitoring, evaluations, and feedback from the community.
A few slides from a class session in the Carnegie Mellon School of Design, "Foundations of Practice for Social Design." I'm putting them up for folks who arrived here from my "notes on participatory design' on medium.com.
Writing Conclusion For Essay. Online assignment writing service.Sarah Michalak
The document discusses the steps involved in requesting and receiving writing assistance from HelpWriting.net, including creating an account, submitting a request form with instructions and deadlines, and reviewing bids from writers before selecting one and placing a deposit to start the assignment. It notes that customers can request revisions and will receive a full refund if the paper is plagiarized, emphasizing HelpWriting.net's commitment to original and high-quality content.
A short, garbled wrap up of Planning-ness 2013 in Boston, MA. It's not meant to be comprehensive of the entire conference, but should hopefully give you a little flavor for the event. It's a fun one y'all.
If you want the REAL presentations, check them out here: http://planningness.com/2013-presentations/
Journey To The Centre Of The Crowd... And Back Again - Crowdsourcing For New ...Pulsar Platform
Crowdsouring is a buzzword that has been knocking around for a while now. There is a lot of thought, theory and ongoing conversation about it, and we're starting to see brands begin to use it in various different formats.
But how does it work in the research & innovation world?
'Journey To The Centre Of The Crowd... And Back Again' explores crowdsourcing from it's definition and gives hints, tips and strategy advice on how you can implement crowsourcing for innovation.
Face is the co-creation planning agency. We bring brands and consumers together to co-create insights, innovation and communications strategy. To find out more check out our site: www.facegroup.co.uk
Panel organized for the RECAST conference in Santa Fe, marking the 20th anniversary of the public process that created the Santa Fe Railyard Redevelopment. Panelists included: Joel Mills, Cheryl Morgan, Erin Simmons, and Thea Crum. The panel explored issues facing cities today and multiple democratic methodologies (participatory budgeting, democratic urbanism) for city building.
Free Lined Writing Paper Printable - PrinKate Campbell
1) Car seat installation is important for safety, as thousands are injured or killed each year due to improper installation.
2) When buying a car seat, parents should research which seats have high safety standards and how they scored on safety rating tests.
3) It is crucial to ensure the car seat is installed correctly according to the vehicle and that the child is properly strapped in snugly. Extra blankets or bulky clothing can cause improper fitting.
This document discusses participatory design and how to conduct remote participatory design sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participatory design involves stakeholders in the design process to better understand their needs. It describes common participatory design activities like generative collaging to elicit ideas and reflective card sorting to evaluate concepts. When planning remote sessions, the document recommends keeping the technology simple, designing effective recruitment, considering the at-home experience by sending materials, and being flexible with logistics like shorter sessions to avoid fatigue from long video calls. The goal is to effectively engage participants remotely to gain insights through adapted participatory design activities.
The document discusses how governance can be "unbundled" by distributing government functions through technology and citizen participation. It provides examples from Bowen Island, Canada where citizen initiatives like a crowdsourced road conditions map emerged during a snowstorm, bypassing traditional government processes. The author argues that crises, political will, and "constructive renegades" can drive this unbundling. Governments may take on more of a facilitator role by integrating citizen input and data. For unbundling to work, citizens need to create tools, relate institutional data, and embrace responsibility while governments embrace openness.
Essays To Get Into College. Online assignment writing service.Jennifer Wood
The document discusses the history of US foreign policy and economic influence in Latin America, known as "Dollar Diplomacy." It began with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which opposed European colonialism in the Americas. In 1904, Roosevelt expanded it to allow US intervention and economic control in Latin America. This led to the "Banana Wars" where the US military occupied countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti to protect US corporate interests in industries like banana plantations.
Talk on how to repair the digital divide among political factions. Suggested socio-technical pattern language for intelligent discourse. John C. Thomas
Jordi Navarro and Antoni Roig, 'Engagement, Hierarchy and Cohesion in Creativ...Agnes Gulyas
Jordi Sánchez Navarro and Antoni Roig, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain, 'Engagement, Hierarchy and Cohesion in Creative Communities of Collaborative Filmmaking' presented at 'Communities in the Digital Age' International Symposium, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK, 12 June 2013
Together: An app to foster community for young urbanitesCori Faklaris
Presentation for a UX design and development project authored by myself, Melissa Dryer and Joe Dara for H541 Interaction Design Practice, Fall 2015, in the graduate program in Human-Computer Interaction at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
1) Forever Manchester is a community foundation that works to help local communities in Greater Manchester do extraordinary things together through an asset-based community development approach.
2) Asset-based community development focuses on identifying the skills, talents, and resources within a community that can be mobilized, rather than focusing on needs and problems. It involves discovering individual talents, mapping community associations and institutions, and making connections between assets.
3) The workshop taught techniques for identifying and connecting community assets, including asset mapping, identifying individual skills and passions, finding people through positive conversations, and sharing community stories. The goal is to encourage local-led and sustainable community action.
Social Entrepreneurship: Mobilizing, Innovating, and Collaborating for Social...Illinois ResourceNet
Betsy Goulet, Adjunct Faculty and Doctoral Student, University of Illinois, Springfield, will discuss the importance of collabora-tion amid the new reality of shrinking budgets where agencies, nonprofits and social service programs are being forced to do more with less. She will share information about the role of social entrepreneurship as an innovative strategy for social change in the development of partnerships among nonprofits, government, universities and corporations.
Slides on why public engagement is being done, what kinds of engagement are happening, and how we can do it better - by building stronger civic infrastructure at the local level.
NCDD Presentation for CommunityMatters in Newport VermontCommunityMatters
The document discusses strategies for building community through public engagement, dialogue, and deliberation. It outlines challenges such as disconnection and partisan politics, and emphasizes the need for inclusion, shared purpose, and sustained engagement. Asset-based community development and deliberative forums are presented as approaches to identify community strengths, encourage cooperation, and find solutions through respectful exchange of diverse views. Examples from previous community initiatives demonstrate how these principles of public participation can strengthen relationships and foster collaborative action.
MPI Presentation on Gameification DeMarleAnn DeMarle
This document discusses how to use game principles and mechanics to increase engagement for meetings and events. It covers how games create meaningful experiences through assigned roles, rewards systems, and levels of participation and difficulty. The goal is to motivate behaviors that support the event by defining what players should accomplish and driving participation through badges, points, leaderboards and status levels. Mechanics like ongoing updates help sustain long-term engagement in the online community built for the event.
The document provides instructions for requesting essay writing help from HelpWriting.net in 5 steps:
1. Create an account with a password and email.
2. Complete a 10-minute order form providing instructions, sources, and deadline.
3. Review bids from writers and choose one based on qualifications.
4. Review the paper and authorize payment if satisfied, with free revisions available.
5. Request multiple revisions to ensure satisfaction, with a full refund option for plagiarism.
GlobalGiving crowdsources funding for nonprofits by allowing individuals to donate to specific projects and see results. It uses community input and social media to evaluate over 2500 nonprofit projects and organizations. GlobalGiving aims to build an online reputation system for nonprofits based on monitoring, evaluations, and feedback from visitors, the community, and filtered social media.
GlobalGiving crowdsources funding for nonprofits by allowing individuals to donate to specific projects and see results. It uses community input and social media to evaluate over 2500 nonprofit projects and organizations. GlobalGiving aims to build an online reputation system for nonprofits based on monitoring, evaluations, and feedback from the community.
A few slides from a class session in the Carnegie Mellon School of Design, "Foundations of Practice for Social Design." I'm putting them up for folks who arrived here from my "notes on participatory design' on medium.com.
Writing Conclusion For Essay. Online assignment writing service.Sarah Michalak
The document discusses the steps involved in requesting and receiving writing assistance from HelpWriting.net, including creating an account, submitting a request form with instructions and deadlines, and reviewing bids from writers before selecting one and placing a deposit to start the assignment. It notes that customers can request revisions and will receive a full refund if the paper is plagiarized, emphasizing HelpWriting.net's commitment to original and high-quality content.
A short, garbled wrap up of Planning-ness 2013 in Boston, MA. It's not meant to be comprehensive of the entire conference, but should hopefully give you a little flavor for the event. It's a fun one y'all.
If you want the REAL presentations, check them out here: http://planningness.com/2013-presentations/
Journey To The Centre Of The Crowd... And Back Again - Crowdsourcing For New ...Pulsar Platform
Crowdsouring is a buzzword that has been knocking around for a while now. There is a lot of thought, theory and ongoing conversation about it, and we're starting to see brands begin to use it in various different formats.
But how does it work in the research & innovation world?
'Journey To The Centre Of The Crowd... And Back Again' explores crowdsourcing from it's definition and gives hints, tips and strategy advice on how you can implement crowsourcing for innovation.
Face is the co-creation planning agency. We bring brands and consumers together to co-create insights, innovation and communications strategy. To find out more check out our site: www.facegroup.co.uk
Panel organized for the RECAST conference in Santa Fe, marking the 20th anniversary of the public process that created the Santa Fe Railyard Redevelopment. Panelists included: Joel Mills, Cheryl Morgan, Erin Simmons, and Thea Crum. The panel explored issues facing cities today and multiple democratic methodologies (participatory budgeting, democratic urbanism) for city building.
Free Lined Writing Paper Printable - PrinKate Campbell
1) Car seat installation is important for safety, as thousands are injured or killed each year due to improper installation.
2) When buying a car seat, parents should research which seats have high safety standards and how they scored on safety rating tests.
3) It is crucial to ensure the car seat is installed correctly according to the vehicle and that the child is properly strapped in snugly. Extra blankets or bulky clothing can cause improper fitting.
This document discusses participatory design and how to conduct remote participatory design sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participatory design involves stakeholders in the design process to better understand their needs. It describes common participatory design activities like generative collaging to elicit ideas and reflective card sorting to evaluate concepts. When planning remote sessions, the document recommends keeping the technology simple, designing effective recruitment, considering the at-home experience by sending materials, and being flexible with logistics like shorter sessions to avoid fatigue from long video calls. The goal is to effectively engage participants remotely to gain insights through adapted participatory design activities.
The document discusses how governance can be "unbundled" by distributing government functions through technology and citizen participation. It provides examples from Bowen Island, Canada where citizen initiatives like a crowdsourced road conditions map emerged during a snowstorm, bypassing traditional government processes. The author argues that crises, political will, and "constructive renegades" can drive this unbundling. Governments may take on more of a facilitator role by integrating citizen input and data. For unbundling to work, citizens need to create tools, relate institutional data, and embrace responsibility while governments embrace openness.
Essays To Get Into College. Online assignment writing service.Jennifer Wood
The document discusses the history of US foreign policy and economic influence in Latin America, known as "Dollar Diplomacy." It began with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which opposed European colonialism in the Americas. In 1904, Roosevelt expanded it to allow US intervention and economic control in Latin America. This led to the "Banana Wars" where the US military occupied countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti to protect US corporate interests in industries like banana plantations.
Talk on how to repair the digital divide among political factions. Suggested socio-technical pattern language for intelligent discourse. John C. Thomas
Jordi Navarro and Antoni Roig, 'Engagement, Hierarchy and Cohesion in Creativ...Agnes Gulyas
Jordi Sánchez Navarro and Antoni Roig, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain, 'Engagement, Hierarchy and Cohesion in Creative Communities of Collaborative Filmmaking' presented at 'Communities in the Digital Age' International Symposium, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK, 12 June 2013
Together: An app to foster community for young urbanitesCori Faklaris
Presentation for a UX design and development project authored by myself, Melissa Dryer and Joe Dara for H541 Interaction Design Practice, Fall 2015, in the graduate program in Human-Computer Interaction at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
What if we had a method we could use with clients to better understand their stakeholder landscape and that would help us do more effective UX work? What if it was more like a consulting method instead of a design deliverable? Could that help us choose research, design and evaluation methods more effectively so we could have more impact on our projects?
This document discusses challenging people's "opinion comfort zones" regarding helping those in need locally versus helping internationally. It proposes using the same myths people believe about international aid and applying them to domestic systems to show that neither option is clearly more effective. The goal is to spark discussion and open people's minds by dissolving common arguments against international aid. Tactics include Facebook/YouTube ads and a website sharing evidence that aid makes a real difference globally and locally through live video broadcasts.
This document summarizes a town hall meeting between Stan Freck from Microsoft and Evan Burfield from Synteractive discussing how technology can help citizens engage with their local governments. They describe how changing demographics and ubiquitous connectivity are increasing demands for online citizen engagement. They promote Microsoft TownHall and Synteractive's Citizen services/open dataSocialRally platform as tools that can connect and empower citizens through moderated forums, analytics, and customization options. Examples of organizations using these tools include NASA, Colombian presidential candidates, and the House Republican forum.
Someone's Done that Already: The Best Practices of Sharing Best Practices, pr...craigslist_fndn
We want to get the job done right now. Immediately. Now as in last week. But what if someone already figured out a great roadmap for success? This session explores resources for discovering and sharing best practices, including the politics of hoarding or sharing best practices.
This document discusses skills that linguistics graduates can transfer to careers in user research. It identifies 5 such skills: 1) field study methods, 2) understanding conversation with digital devices, 3) experience with voice user interfaces and voice analytics, 4) expertise in how language appears in digital products, and 5) focus on problem definition and intended audience. The document encourages applying linguistic knowledge beyond just language to fields like qualitative research, product design, and user testing.
Nancy Frishberg advocates for rethinking focus groups to remove drawbacks of traditional focus groups, and engage participants and stakeholders with fun activities.
http://www.fishbird.com/2013/03/11/lets-not-demonize-focus-groups/
This introduction to ideas about sign languages was prepared for Stanford University's Linguistics 1 course in November 2008. It emphasizes the 4 myths, shows some authentic ASL vlogs and websites that use ASL as one of the modes of communication. (Links have not been verified again.)
Keys to Success as a Volunteer Organization (BayCHI Ignite CLS West2010)Nancy Frishberg
This document discusses the history and operations of BayCHI, the local chapter of the ACM SIGCHI organization. It provides brief biographies of 20 BayCHI members and leaders, highlighting their roles and contributions to the organization over its 20+ year history. Key aspects of BayCHI that are emphasized include its monthly programs, job bank, special interest groups, online resources, and role in bringing the local human-computer interaction community together.
Observers are briefed about the goals of the Innovation Games® sessions, and their role and contributions to the design research effort. The client organization (not named here, but shown as [Client]) is building software to help individuals manage their activity levels and dietary changes. Observers are employees or supporters of the Client. Participants in the sessions were recruited specifically for the occasion.
This document discusses using serious games to facilitate innovation and design processes. It outlines who participates in serious games (facilitators, customers/users, observers), when they are used (early in software development or when issues arise), how long sessions last (1-2 hours typically), how many sessions to have (1-2 games in a half day), and which games to choose based on goals and dimensions. Serious games provide benefits like engaging participants, triggering discussion, and producing rapid results for product teams. They can elicit a variety of responses from teams, groups, or individuals.
1. Focus Groups
+
Fun Activity
=
Useful Results
In the previous post, we described how focus groups can go wrong. Here, we’ll talk about
focus groups as an example of an interaction that - when designed well - can yield useful
and surprising results.
2. Focus Groups
+
What kinds of
fun?
=
What’s a useful
result?
And you’ll ask “What do you mean ‘fun’?” and “What kinds of useful results”
3. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jramspott/5714513775/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jramspott/5715072036/in/photostream/
Typical Civic Engagement
In a typical civic engagement, the City Council sits in their usual ceremonial chairs or a table
at the front of the room facing an aroused audience of citizens. The question on the agenda
is “How shall we create a budget for next year? What items can we cut? Which of our revenue
generating measures is least painful for most people? How to assign limited resources to too
many categories?” The city staff might provide a Powerpoint presentation. The council may
ask staff a few questions, and then open up the microphone to citizens.
4. flickr.com/jramspott
Citizens testify...
Citizens are impassioned and rise to testify, likely on a single topic.
6. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bz3rk/3641520081/in/photostream/
“...People can say whatever they want
without having to wrestle with complexity.
It encourages extreme thinking.”
Kip Harkness, Senior Project Manager, City of San Jose
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-30/making-sense-of-the-games-politicians-play
This method of getting citizen feedback leads to extreme thinking and less engagement with
the full complexity of the budget.
7. And now, for something
completely different
How to change it up?
8. For the past 3 years, the City of San Jose (California), the 3rd largest city in CA and 10th
largest in the US (as of this writing), has taken a different approach to getting citizen
involvement in the budget process. With pro bono support from the Innovation Games®
company and its non-profit collaborator, Every Voice Engaged, San Jose has played a version
of “Buy a Feature” calling it “Budget Games”.
[The image in this slide was created live at the event by Julia Feng]
9. City staff works with organizers:
prepare spending & revenue proposals
The organizers work with city staff to create specific proposals for generating revenue and
spending it: The rules require specific cuts: “close libraries one hour earlier,” rather than “cut
library budgets by 5 percent.
10. Residents come downtown on Saturday
Citizens that are part of the local neighborhood associations, the youth commission or other
civic organizations are invited to come downtown on a Saturday morning in January. Instead
of a free-for-all discussion, there are a dozen or (this year) 17 proposals for how to spend
money, plus several candidates for raising revenue (bond measures, or increases to sales tax,
for example).
People are seated at tables of 8-10, with those from other neighborhoods. Each table has one
trained facilitator and a notetaker/observer from the external organizations. Each citizen is
given some (play) money, but even combined, the whole table doesn’t have sufficient funds to
purchase more than a couple of items on the list. Now the fun begins!
City staff people from various offices are available to answer questions (“If we remove
opportunities for overtime from these managers in law enforcement, will they leave San Jose?
Will we actually save money?”).
11. Brief engagement, many perspectives...
In a period of approximately 60 minutes, each table must determine whether to raise revenue
and how (within the constraints provided by the game), and how to spend that revenue.
People quickly realize that they need to explain their support for particular proposals in order
to sway others to their point of view and gain their contributions of “play money”.
The results from each table’s play of the game are then collated (after the Saturday) and
presented to the City Council as a report, influencing the Council’s decisions about how to
proceed with the following year’s budget.
The benefits attributed to traditional focus groups also are true for this activity-oriented
event:
+ Gather several viewpoints from many people at one time (info/unit time; listeners’ time)
+ Use the group setting to take the advantage of social interaction to draw out participants
The expectation is people will have an ordinary conversation. “Yes, and what’s more...”
or “No, I disagree, because...” While we rarely hear this kind of person-to-person discussion
in a traditional focus group, I’d argue that’s because of the design of the interaction where
we usually ask preference questions “Do you like X or Y?”
12. And it scales!
An additional benefit to this format for interaction is that it scales: more than one group
meets at the same time discussing the same questions, but possibly with different outcomes.
Although it’s sometimes a little hard to hear, we know we’re getting perspectives from 20
tables of neighbors from across the city.
13. Cooperation and civility rule
(No Fisticuffs!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2459829190/
Additional positives about choosing this design for in-person interaction:
+ Games in small groups lead to compromise
+ Elected officials gain permission for some hard decisions
+ No fisticuffs (Civil engagement in civic affairs; all join to play this cooperative game)
14. Let the fun begin!
Learn more:
www.fishbird.com
These forms of interaction can be considered participatory design, a method that involves the
users of a product or service (in this case, “paying for city government and services”) to be
present and participate in the creation or updating of the product/service. For more from
Nancy Frishberg, see www.fishbird.com
Editor's Notes
In the previous post, we described how focus groups can go wrong. Here, we’ll talk about focus groups as an example of an interaction that - when designed well - can yield useful and surprising results.
In the previous post, we described how focus groups can go wrong. Here, we’ll talk about focus groups as an example of an interaction that - when designed well - can yield useful and surprising results.
The City Council sits in their usual ceremonial chairs or a table at the front of the room facing an aroused audience of citizens. The question on the agenda is “How shall we create a budget for next year? What items can we cut? Which of our revenue generating measures is least painful for most people? How to assign limited resources to too many categories?” The city staff shows the Powerpoint presentation that’s been prepared. The council may ask a few questions, and then they open up the microphone to citizens.
The City Council sits in their usual ceremonial chairs or a table at the front of the room facing an aroused audience of citizens. The question on the agenda is “How shall we create a budget for next year? What items can we cut? Which of our revenue generating measures is least painful for most people? How to assign limited resources to too many categories?” The city staff shows the Powerpoint presentation that’s been prepared. The council may ask a few questions, and then they open up the microphone to citizens.
The City Council sits in their usual ceremonial chairs or a table at the front of the room facing an aroused audience of citizens. The question on the agenda is “How shall we create a budget for next year? What items can we cut? Which of our revenue generating measures is least painful for most people? How to assign limited resources to too many categories?” The city staff shows the Powerpoint presentation that’s been prepared. The council may ask a few questions, and then they open up the microphone to citizens.
The City Council sits in their usual ceremonial chairs or a table at the front of the room facing an aroused audience of citizens. The question on the agenda is “How shall we create a budget for next year? What items can we cut? Which of our revenue generating measures is least painful for most people? How to assign limited resources to too many categories?” The city staff shows the Powerpoint presentation that’s been prepared. The council may ask a few questions, and then they open up the microphone to citizens.
For the past 3 years, the City of San Jose (California), the 3rd largest city in CA and 10th largest in the US (as of this writing), has taken a different approach to getting citizen involvement in the budget process. With pro bono support from the Innovation Games® company and its non-profit collaborator, Every Voice Engaged, San Jose has played a version of “Buy a Feature” calling it “Budget Games”.
Specific: “The rules require specific cuts: “close libraries one hour earlier,” rather than “cut library budgets by 5 percent.” The results from each table’s play of the game are then collated (after the Saturday) and presented to the City Council as a report, which influences the Council’s decisions about how to proceed with the following year’s budget.
Citizens that are part of the local neighborhood associations are invited to come downtown on a Saturday morning in January. Instead of a free-for-all discussion, there are a dozen or (this year) 17 proposals for how to spend money, plus several candidates for raising revenue (bond measures, or increases to sales tax, for example). People are seated at tables of 8-10, with those from other neighborhoods. Each table has one trained facilitator and a notetaker from the external organizations. Each citizen is given some (play) money, but even combined, the whole table doesn’t have sufficient funds to purchase more than a couple of items on the list. Now the fun begins! City staff people from various offices are available to answer questions (“If we remove opportunities for overtime from these managers in law enforcement, will they leave San Jose? Will we actually save money?”).
In a period of approximately 60 minutes, each table must determine whether to raise revenue and how (within the constraints provided by the game), and how to spend that revenue. People quickly realize that they need to explain their support for particular proposals in order to sway others to their point of view and gain their contributions of “play money”. The benefits attributed to traditional focus groups also are true for this activity-oriented event: + Gather several viewpoints from many people at one time (info/unit time; listeners’ time) + Use the group setting to take the advantage of social interaction to draw out participants The expectation is people will have an ordinary conversation. “Yes, and what’s more...” or “No, I disagree, because...” While we rarely hear this kind of person-to-person discussion in a focus group, I’d argue that’s because of the design of the interaction and the kinds of questions that we ask “do you like X? or Y?”
An additional benefit is that this scales. Although it’s sometimes a little hard to hear, we know we’re getting perspectives from 20 tables of neighbors from across the city.
Additional positives about choosing this design for in-person interaction are + Games in small groups lead to compromise + Elected officials feel they’ve gained permission for some hard decisions + No fisticuffs (Civil engagement in civic affairs; all join to play this cooperative game)
This slide is about celebrating many ways to design the interaction for in-person (or online) small group activities. These forms of interaction can be considered participatory design.